


The Beginning of Nezumi's Troubles

by 35-leukothea (35_leukothea)



Category: No. 6 (Anime & Manga), No. 6 - All Media Types, No. 6 - Asano Atsuko
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Nezushi - Freeform, Sickfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-19
Updated: 2015-07-19
Packaged: 2018-04-10 01:49:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,359
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4372496
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/35_leukothea/pseuds/35-leukothea
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nezumi has forgotten to hydrate himself like a responsible adult and both he and Shion suffer the consequences.</p><p><i>The Magician's Nephew</i>, chapter six: "The Beginning of Uncle Andrew's Troubles."</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Beginning of Nezumi's Troubles

**Author's Note:**

> Wowwwww, sorry for the unexpected hiatus! I'll try to be writing more again soon. Have this sappy piece of crap in the meantime.

Nezumi woke up sick.

At first, he didn’t realize it. He jerked awake from a hazy, nonsensical dream at about 6 a.m. with a dry mouth and sticky eyelashes, and assumed he’d just watched someone die. He rubbed his eyes and forced them open, then glanced to his side, where Shion was still sleeping soundly. With as little jostling of the other as he could manage, he got up out of bed and silently made his way to the bathroom. He tied his hair back, turned the tap to make the water as warm as he could get it (which, needless to say, wasn’t very warm at all), then abruptly realized he was too hot to want warm water anyway.  _Some dream_ , he thought, turning the tap back to cold and proceeding to wash the gunk out of his eyes. He downed a few mouthfuls of water for good measure, though it didn’t do much for his parched throat, then dried his hands and face with a scratchy old towel and went back to bed. Shion automatically curled closer to him as he climbed onto the mattress, as if he could tell even in sleep when Nezumi was or was not beside him (and wasn’t happy with the latter). It was much too stuffy for Nezumi’s liking, but he was still tired and his brain felt fuzzy, so he couldn’t find it in him to really care. He fell back into a heavy sleep within minutes, and if he saw any more strange things, he couldn’t recall them when he woke.

Which seemed to be about two seconds after he shut his eyes.

“ _Nezumi!_ ”

He gave a violent start and inhaled sharply, then immediately began to cough. He turned his face into his elbow, but it was over in a moment. Someone was shouting at him.

“ _Stop_  screaming,” he snapped, nearly flinching at the sound of his own voice—it was croaky and dry, drier than it had been earlier. He coughed again, and his cough was dry, too. He was probably dehydrated.

“Are you okay?” Shion demanded—underneath his anger, he sounded really worried, and Nezumi instantly felt bad. “It’s not like you to sleep so deeply. I’ve been trying to wake you up for the past two minutes.”

“I’m fine,” Nezumi said, aware of how unconvincing this was but figuring it wouldn’t do him any good to tell Shion that it slightly hurt to breathe at the moment. That would only make him freak out. “Just dehydrated, I think.”

“I’ll get you some water,” Shion offered immediately.

“I’ll get it myse…” He trailed off. Shion was already halfway across the room, so he swallowed a sigh and lay back down, pushing the pillow away to rest his head on the sheets instead. They were cooler, for some reason, and he still felt too warm. And tired.  _Still?_

“Shion?” he called as loudly as he could, trying to keep his grimaces of pain internal. “What time is it?”

“Half past nine.”

 _Nine-thirty?_ Nezumi pushed the heels of his palms into his eyes. This was much later than he usually got up—then again, he probably wouldn’t be doing anything today anyway. “Why did you let me sleep?”

“ _Let_  you?” Shion repeated, sounding perplexed. “You’re always up before me, Nezumi. I’ve never had any reason to wake you up. You were just starting to scare me. Here.”

He handed him a mug of cold water, and Nezumi propped himself up on an elbow to drink it. It felt like tiny shards of glass going down his throat, but he knew he had to. Shion was watching him intently with a concerned frown on his face, which Nezumi tried to ignore but still found supremely uncomfortable. He finished his water and set the mug aside, then sank back into the mattress, shutting his eyes again.

“Would his Majesty kindly turn off that light?” he mumbled, referring to a nearby lamp, and Shion laughed nervously before obeying.

“Are you going back to sleep?” he asked.

“Doubt it.”  _Hurts too much._  “Do you have work at Inukashi’s today?”

“No.”

“Liar.”

“Frankly, I think you getting mysteriously dehydrated overnight is more important than washing dogs,” Shion said matter-of-factly.

Nezumi opened his eyes to glare at him. “That’s not how it works here, dumbass. And I can take care of myself.”

He shrugged. “I never said you couldn’t. I just don’t want you to be alone when you black out and hit your head on the table corner or something.”

“‘ _When_ ’?”

“You know what I meant.”

Nezumi began to reply but abruptly dissolved into another fit of coughing, and Shion put the water mug (magically refilled) back in his hands. Nezumi shook his head, then instantly regretted it when it gave him a two-second bout of very strong vertigo.

“I don’t want it,” he said hoarsely, admitting internally that he was a touch frightened of gagging.

Shion huffed. “This is why you need me, Nezumi. You’re too stubborn to be of any use to yourself. Drink it. And sit up straight so you don’t—”

“—choke,” he agreed as he pushed himself up to a sitting position, then sucked in a breath when the world began to turn pirouettes again. He put out a hand to steady himself, but there was nothing to hold on to, and when his brain returned to functioning condition, Shion’s arms were around him and Nezumi’s forehead was on his shoulder. He was probably saying something, but Nezumi was too lightheaded to hear it.  _He’ll never leave me alone now_ , he thought petulantly, though he was glad for Shion holding him only because he was corporeal, tangible, something solid to lean into, which the rest of earthly matter did not seem to be at the moment.

“—you okay? Are you alright?”

He took several deep breaths before responding, and things began to feel more upright. “Shion,” he said slowly, “I don’t know how to tell you this, but…I am a little bit ill.”

Shion sighed and rolled his eyes, but underneath his exasperation he was clearly relieved that the other was well enough to be snarky. “You’re not funny, Nezumi.”

“Excuse you, I’m hilarious. I’m funnier than you, at least.”

“Yeah, but which one of us is having dizzy spells and breathing pain, huh?”

In his surprise, Nezumi drew back a little too quickly and almost fell over again, but Shion caught him. “I didn’t tell you about—” He stopped.

Shion’s expression was earnest, but he was absolutely, positively laughing at him.

Nezumi scowled and swatted him away. “Fuck off,” he muttered, and Shion grinned.

“Drink your water,” he said. “Do you want anything to eat?”

“ _No_ ,” Nezumi said firmly, taking the mug with shaky hands. “Are you trying to kill me?”

“Alright, alright, I was just wondering. Is there anything else you want?”

He put down his water and said, maybe a little too harshly, “For you to shut up.”

Shion just laughed, though, and said no more.

The rest of the day was dull. Nezumi forced down more water, nearly fell over whenever he got up (or tried to), only to be caught again by Shion, and contemplated how much he hated being sick. And how much he hated sore throats. He hated sore throats especially, and this one was brutal. He fell asleep early and slept poorly—probably kept Shion awake, too, which he was sorry for, but he supposed that if one of them was going to miserable they might as well both be.

The next day went a similar way. His throat felt a little better, but not much. The most eventful thing that happened was Shion insisting he wash after dinner, to which Nezumi responded that he would probably fall and crack his skull from standing up for too long if he had to take a shower.

“I can wash your hair,” suggested Shion. “It just feels better to be clean when you’re sick. At least change clothes or something, yeah?”

Nezumi, from experience, knew that Shion never gave up on anything, especially when it came to him. From experience, he also knew that protesting only made it worse. So he acquiesced—reluctantly, yes, but he did. And besides, he did feel kind of...gross. Objectively speaking. Never mind that the words “feel” and “objectively” don’t mix. Fifteen minutes later he was sitting on a towel on the bathroom floor with another towel over his bare shoulders, forcing himself not to lean back against Shion as he gently dried and combed Nezumi’s hair. He had suddenly gotten very warm all over, in a not-awesome sort of way, and it was making him feel very hazy. It was so stuffy in here. Shion had offered to get him his water cup several minutes ago and now he had no idea why he’d refused. He shut his eyes and ignored his aching head.

When Shion was done with his hair, he left Nezumi to change into a (comparatively) fresh pair of clothes and went to do...something. He changed haphazardly, gripping the side of the sink when he had to stand, then meandered wobbly out of the bathroom, collapsed onto the couch, and downed the rest of his water. And of course, now he had to refill it. God, being dehydrated was a chore. Things that he had previously done without thought were now next to impossible, like “walking” and “correctly processing visual data.” Good lord. Who needed proper bodily functions, anyway? 

He forced himself to his feet with his mug in hand, then stumbled over to where Shion was doing whatever on earth he was doing, dropped the mug, tried unwisely to pick it up, and promptly fell.

“Whoa, whoa, careful there!” Shion instantly reached out to catch him, thankfully before he faceplanted or tripped on the cup, which he quickly nudged out of the way with his foot. “I guess you really haven’t gotten any better since yesterday, have you?” 

He made a short, hoarse noise that could have probably been interpreted in a multitude of different ways, trying to keep his head up, and managed to say, “I feel like shit.”

Shion gave him a quick peck on his still-dry lips, which Nezumi’s muddled brain had no idea how to respond to, so it just didn’t. “I bet all the hot water on your face didn’t really help,” he mused, mostly to himself. “I should’ve thought of that. Well, then, off to bed with you, I suppose. I’ll get you more water.”

 _I’M SO BORED_ , Nezumi wanted to scream at him, but it hurt too much—and, as much as he hated his current situation, it also hurt to think about spending even one more second sat in bed staring at the ceiling. So, he did the logical thing: he latched onto Shion and did not let go.

“Hey, what—Nezumi, what are you doing?” He sighed. “I’ll come sit with you, okay? Just go lie down, I’ll be there in a minute. Can you walk?”

 _No, I can’t fucking walk_ , Nezumi grumbled internally, as he reluctantly detached himself (with gentle persuasion) and made his cautious way back to bed. Shion brought him the mug, refilled with cold water, and his head began to clear again. He thus felt a little bit less like shit, which as far as feelings went, was still not that great. Shion lay down next to him, and Nezumi rested his head in the crook of his shoulder (optimum position for getting his hair pet, he knew), his arm draped over the other’s waist. Comfortable, but not pain-eliminating. He wanted to be able to sleep.

“Read to me,” he mumbled into Shion’s shirt.

“Read to you?” Shion repeated, sounding a little surprised. He probably didn’t think Nezumi was well enough to focus on something like that—but Nezumi didn’t want to focus. He just wanted the noise. “Read what?”

“Anything.”

He felt Shion lean over to grab whatever books were on the side table. “How’s, uh... _The Magician’s Nephew_? I like that one.”

“Fine.” Nezumi liked that one too, though he’d probably never admit it. It was a kids’ book. Made no goddamn sense, but maybe that was part of its charm. He closed his eyes, emptied his mind of any other thoughts, and listened to Shion read.

“Chapter one,” he began. “‘The Wrong Door.’ This is a story about something that happened long ago when your grandfather was a child. It is a very important story because it shows how all the comings and goings between our own world and the land of Narnia first began...”

 

* * *

 

When Nezumi woke the next morning, the first thing he noticed was that Shion was already up. Third day in a row he’d slept too late.  _Best not make a habit of it._

The second thing he noticed was that the biting pain in his throat was gone.

He was so surprised by this that he instantly sad bolt upright, then was delighted when the world stayed completely put. He felt a normal temperature, too. It almost seemed too good to be true.

“Shion, I—!”  _Huh?_

He forced a cough. That had felt weird. Maybe there was something in his throat?

“Nezumi?” Shion poked his snowy white head out from behind the bathroom door. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m—”  _What the hell?_

He was talking, but he wasn’t making any noise. He tried again, but to no avail.

“Did you...did you lose your voice?”

Nezumi dropped his head in his hands in disbelief.  _Boy, will the manager blow a fuse over this_ , he thought dryly. _Precious Eve’s gone and busted his larynx. Whatever shall we do?_

Shion was grinning. “So I guess this means you can’t complain about being sick anymore,” he quipped lightly.

Nezumi tried to swear at him, but for all his effort, all he could manage was a sad croaking noise, so he flipped him the bird instead.

Shion laughed at him outright this time. “Oh, man,” he muttered to himself as he disappeared back into the bathroom. “This should be a lot of fun.”


End file.
